“It’s there,” he said, pointing back.  “Just behind that big black rock.  There’s a slab over it, an’ you’ve got the name right.  It’s Mortimer FitzHugh.”

Above them the clouds were splitting asunder.  A shaft of sunlight broke through, and as they stood looking over the little lake the shaft broadened, and the sun swept in golden triumph over the mountains.  MacDonald beat his limp hat against his knee, and with his other hand drained the water from his beard.

“What you goin’ to do?” he asked.

Aldous turned toward the timber.  Joanne herself answered the question.  She was coming up the slope.  In a few moments she stood beside them.  First she looked down upon the lake.  Then her eyes turned to Aldous.  There was no need for speech.  He held out his hand, and without hesitation she gave him her own.  MacDonald understood.  He walked down ahead of them toward the black rock.  When he came to the rock he paused.  Aldous and Joanne passed him.  Then they, too, stopped, and Aldous freed the girl’s hand.

With an unexpectedness that was startling they had come upon the grave.  Yet not a sound escaped Joanne’s lips.  Aldous could not see that she was breathing.  Less than ten paces from them was the mound, protected by its cairn of stones; and over the stones rose a weather-stained slab in the form of a cross.  One glance at the grave and Aldous riveted his eyes upon Joanne.  For a full minute she stood as motionless as though the last breath had left her body.  Then, slowly, she advanced.  He could not see her face.  He followed, quietly, step by step as she moved.  For another minute she leaned over the slab, making out the fine-seared letters of the name.  Her body was bent forward; her two hands were clenched tightly at her side.  Even more slowly than she had advanced she turned toward Aldous and MacDonald.  Her face was dead white.  She lifted her hands to her breast, and clenched them there.

“It is his name,” she said, and there was something repressed and terrible in her low voice.  “It is his name!”

She was looking straight into the eyes of John Aldous, and he saw that she was fighting to say something which she had not spoken.  Suddenly she came to him, and her two hands caught his arm.

“It is terrible—­what I am going to ask of you,” she struggled.  “You will think I am a ghoul.  But I must have proof!  I must—­I must!”

She was staring wildly at him, and all at once there leapt fiercely through him a dawning of the truth.  The name was there, seared by hot iron in that slab of wood.  The name!  But under the cairn of stones——­

Behind them MacDonald had heard.  He towered beside them now.  His great mountain-twisted hands drew Joanne a step back, and strange gentleness was in his voice as he said: 

“You an’ Johnny go back an’ build a fire, Mis’ Joanne.  I’ll find the proof!”

“Come,” said Aldous, and he held out his hand again.